There’s no better feeling than lying on the grass of the President’s Lawn after finals week has wrapped up. The pressure of examinations and final projects has faded into distant memory and the excitement of the summer is rolling on in. That being said, it’s been a really exciting semester! I joined TEMS, the Tufts EMS team on campus and recently began working shifts.
It was a curious decision to become an EMT: I realized during my sophomore year that had dismal medical awareness and I thought having basic medical training would be a great life skill. These thoughts inspired a few random Google searches but wasn’t enough to get me to do anything concrete. Then I witnessed the bombings at the Boston Marathon last year. That was the tipping point, when I realized that if I were ever in a situation like that again, I’d want the skills to respond.
In addition to TEMS, I performed with La Salsa in the Burlesque show and also received a scholarship to study Chinese for the summer. I haven’t taken a foreign language since sophomore year in high school (engineer…) but Tufts was willing to transfer the Chinese credit for the summer to my transcript and enroll in Chinese 3 for the Fall. I’m nervous to jump into a new language, especially with my lack of background, but can’t wait to try something new.
Before I make it over to BU to begin Chinese, however, I’m spending three and a half weeks with a Navy helicopter squadron in Mayport, Fl for my ROTC summer training. While there, I’ll be shadowing various pilots from the squadron and hopefully will get a lot of flying time in-- valid excuse to wear aviators? This is my chance to explore the aviation community and see if it’s a good fit for me for my Navy career. I’ll keep you all updated as I find out more. Everyone have an amazing summer: baby Jumbos, I can’t wait to meet you all in the Fall!